What have I been up to?

It's been a while since my last posting. The BluRay vs. HD-DVD format war is over, so we'll see if my prognostications from my last posting bear any fruit.

At any rate, my wait for a new mobile phone is over. I managed to accidentally crack the display on my trusty Sony Ericsson W600i handset, rendering the phone useless.. Well, not totally useless. It wasn't until a call came in that I pulled the phone out of its holster, and saw it was damaged. I tried to make do by putting my SIM card in my backup phone, but that phone doesn't do web browsing very well, and I can't reply to SMS messages on it. I was due to be on-call at work, and I rely on SMS for notification of on-call needs. I needed to do something about replacing the phone, or I needed to locate a temporary phone I could use until whatever 'ultimate' phone became available. I mentioned before how I was either waiting for the 3G iPhone, or for the OpenMoko phone to become usable. I ended up deciding the existing iPhone would be fine for my needs, and bought one. So, I've been an iPhone owner for the past couple of weeks.

(That's not all I've been up to.. We had hardwood floors installed in our living/dining areas and entry way, and I removed the nasty 'popcorn' texture from the ceiling in those rooms, re-textured, did drywall repair -- did you know termites eat the paper off drywall?-- and repainted the newly textured ceilings. Now that the new floor is installed, I'll be doing new baseboards and quarter-round this weekend.)

There are so many things the iPhone does well, but there are so many things that need work. Thanks to the efforts of many dedicated developers, there is a thriving, unsupported, 3rd-party application development scene for the iPhone. So much so, that Apple has decided to release a Software Development Kit, in order to bring this application development community into the mainstream. I doubt Apple will willingly allow the kind of intimate access to the internals of the iPhone that I expect, and I wonder if folks in my position won't be faced with the prospect of choosing whether or not to 'go legit,' and run only sanctioned applications on their iPhones, or choosing instead to continue to use un-sanctioned applications.

There's way more I could say about the iPhone, but most of what I would say is already out there on other blogs and message boards, so it probably does no good to re-hash all that information here. I'll probably have more to say about my iPhone if and when I end up doing something with it that wasn't already thought up by some other developer or hacker.

The future is (not) Blu

I mentioned a month or two ago that I bought an HD-DVD player when Wal-Mart featured them in a pre-Christmas doorbuster sale for $100. I was not taking sides in the format war... I was voting with my wallet. I don't figure it's worth spending much more than $100 for *any* video disk player, regardless of format. Since then, there's been a couple more rounds in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray slugfest. Blu-Ray's on top right now, due mostly to their content availability coup, where they convinced Warner Bros. to go Blu-Ray only. So, all the fanboys are whipping up the rhetoric in the message boards, goading each other about how HD-DVD isn't long for the world. I've got a few thoughts about this topic:

1.) By far, the most popular Blu-Ray player is the PlayStation 3 gaming console. They cost at least $400, and Sony may have, after over a year of production, finally managed to eke out a small profit on each PS3 console sold. The upshot of all this is that few people are buying the purpose-built Blu-Ray player, where there may be some profit. Yes, yes, I know. My $100 HD-DVD player was sold at a loss, too. But that was back when there was much more of a format war going on. Based on stand-alone player pricing trends over the past few weeks, it looks like Sony and other Blu-Ray player vendors are already 'making their acceptance speeches,' as the victors in the format war. Purpose-built Blu-Ray player prices during the holidays dipped below $300, while HD-DVD was more of a threat. Now, you won't find a player for less than $300, and most are back up to $400. Why would I buy one when my $400 would also net me a whiz-bang gaming console, to boot? - Put more simply, if there's no longer a format war, and your standard is the victor, you better make sure you're in a position to make some money by selling hardware.

2.) My HD-DVD player does a *beautiful* job upconverting standard DVDs to HD quality. No, they don't look as good as real HD content, but upconverted DVDs look *way* better than when they are played back on a standard DVD player. I could be satisfied for quite a while watching upconverted Sdandard-Def DVDs... probably long enough to wait for either Blu-Ray prices to drop *significantly*

or 3.) with the purchase of my HD-DVD player, I may have purchased my last disc player, ever. Once Apple, Vudu, or brand x get their online act together, I'll just rent what I want to watch online, and forego the purchase of yet another disc player.

So... There are three alternatives, any of which are likely, and none of which are unique to my household. None of them feature me adding to Sony's bottom line anytime soon, either. Sony may have won the Blu-Ray battle, but they may have lost the high-def disc war.

(Oh, and by the way, the ability to record on any of these discs is a non-event in my mind. Until one of the multi-hundreds of gigabyte rewritable optical disk formats is economical for the average user, I'll keep buying those unbelievably cheap (by comparison) multi-hundred gigabyte USB/SATA external hard drives for my storage needs.)

The mundane side of early adoption

I accept that I will have to keep waiting for some of the gadgets I really want. The 3G-Compatible OpenMoko phone isn't in the offing anytime soon, and neither is the 3G iPhone. I also don't want to have to hack the iPhone to make it do what I want. This is one example of my early adopter status. (For more examples, see my earlier posting on home theater.)

I find myself being an early adopter today on a far more mundane technology. I want 30 watt dimmable PAR 40 compact soft-white compact flourescent lamps to install in the recessed lighting fixtures in my house. I've been using CFLs for several years in lamps and ceiling fan light fixtures. Now, I want to get rid of the 90-watt recessed incandescent floods in my den, kitchen, and dining area. I use X-10 home control, so the lamps need to be dimmable.

One warehouse store near my house has non-dimmable PAR 40's, and one of the local home improvement stores has *one* PAR 30 dimmable lamp. Then I head over to Wal-Mart. They are spearheading a campaign to foster adoption of CFLs. They even had an endcap display from GE, showing a comparison between the various incandescent lamp types, and their CFL counterparts (and it included PAR 40 lamps.) The display read "You can find lamps like this and more on our lighting aisle." "Terriffic," I think. Sign me up, here's my money! Where are they?! Uhh, there's no such lamp in stock.

Luckily, there are several e-commerce sites that have the lamps I want. I shouldn't bave to resort to such measures to buy light bulbs.

Guitar (anti-) hero, revisited

Engadget has a new take on an alternative to guitar hero. They also mention folks like me when they say "there's one sure way to ruin a guitar party, when a guitar purist suggests the game is a waste of time." At least there's an alternative.

A Text..

Luke 2

¹And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

²(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

³And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

⁴And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

⁵To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

⁶And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

⁷And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

⁸And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

⁹And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

¹⁰And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

¹¹For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

¹²And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

¹⁴Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Nice job putting the company in the tank.... here's your golden parachute

This posting is long overdue....

I could've written about one of the last examples of mismanagement, and used it as an example. This one is not as spectacular from a monetary point of view, but it is nonetheless, the continuation of a trend that defies explanation. Let me suggest an alternate scenario, one that I learned from my old man, himself a successful businessman. "The CEO, Executive Staff, and Board of Directors is accountable for the success or failure of the company. Not just from the standpoint of reputation, but from a financial point of view." That means, "if you put the company in the toilet, you get *nothing*! No golden parachute, no immediate vesting of the stock options you were granted when you took the job. Nothing. *You* are your golden parachute. And, no, we're not going to pay you an exorbitant salary, either. And, by the way, if you've resorted to illegal acts to artificially inflate the value of your company, the police are waiting outside the door for you. (By the way, fellas, and you know who you are, thanks for all the extra work you've added to our plates. It's amazing how we've now come to the point where "Do the right thing" had to be codified into law.)

raison d'etre

What exactly prompted the name of this blog? Look at it this way. One of my long-time friends had a early 70's Datsun 240Z years ago that wasn't much to look at. It also wasn't long for creature comforts. What it lacked in looks and creature comforts was more than made up for by what it would do when sufficient force was applied to the accelerator pedal. The car would go.. terribly fast. That car embodies the blingmenot ethic. I could care less what a thing (gadget, car, you name it) looks like when it is uniquely useful or entertaining. It doesn't need to be flashy, and it doesn't need to be ostentatious.

I talked about $10,00 video projectors and $6,000 home theater patch cords in an earlier posting. Such items are the antithesis of blingmenot. blingmenot embodies my rejection of useless excess. It's the 'best bang for the buck' principle, reduced to a single word.